Russian Satellite Debris Zooms by Space Station

By SPACE.com Staff |
December 1, 2009 04:16pm ET

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Set against a background of clouds, the International Space Station is featured in this image photographed by an STS-129 crew member on Atlantis soon after the station and shuttle undocked on Nov. 25, 2009.

Credit: NASA.

This
story was updated at 5:45 p.m. EST.

A tiny
piece of a defunct Russian satellite zipped by the International Space
Station Tuesday, but was far enough away that outpost?s two-man crew did not
have to strap into their lifeboat to wait out the close shave, NASA officials
said.

The
debris - a small piece of a Cosmos satellite less than four inches (10 cm)
wide - zoomed by the station at 1:19 p.m. EST (1819 GMT) and came less than a
mile (1 km) of the outpost at its closest point.

?Updates
showed that it would not come close enough to the space station to require any
change in the processes onboard or require precautionary measures,? said NASA spokesperson
Kylie Clem.

NASA
detected the object too late to move the space station clear of the incoming
space trash by firing its thrusters.

Instead,
NASA told the station?s American commander Jeffrey Williams and Russian flight
engineer Maxim Suraev that they might have to wake up during their sleep period
and take refuge in their Soyuz spacecraft. The Russian-built Soyuz vehicles
ferry crews to and from the station, and also serve as lifeboats in case
astronauts must leave the orbiting laboratory in an emergency.

But
additional analysis of the object?s trajectory found that, despite its close
pass, the satellite remnant posed no danger of hitting the space station. NASA
typically moves the space station if there is a 1-in-10,000 chance of an object
striking the $100
billion orbiting laboratory.

Tuesday?s
space debris event marked the third time in less than a week that station
managers kept a watchful eye on debris near the space station. An old piece of
an American rocket flew
by the station Saturday and part of a defunct experiment payload buzzed the
outpost on Monday. Neither of those objects posed a threat to the station -
they were several kilometers away - but NASA tracked them anyway to be sure.

Mission
Control receives multiple space debris alerts every month for the space
station, but most times the orbital junk passes well clear of the orbiting
laboratory, NASA spokesperson Kelly Humphries told SPACE.com. While there have
been some recent spikes in debris events near the space station, the overall long-term outlook is stable, he said.

NASA works
to maintain a clear safety perimeter that extends 15 miles (25 km) around the
space station, as well as about a half-mile (0.75 km) above and below it. The
orbiting laboratory flies about 220 miles (354 km) above Earth at a speed of
about 17,500 mph (28,163 kph).

Williams
and Suraev are the only residents aboard the space station after a series of
planned spacecraft departures cut the outpost?s crew size by two-thirds.

Three
members of the station?s six-person crew landed
earlier today on the frigid steppes of Kazakhstan to end their months-long
space mission. Another crewmember returned home last week on NASA?s space
shuttle Atlantis.

Williams
and Suraev will watch over the space station by themselves until late December,
when a new Russian Soyuz will ferry three more crewmembers to the orbiting lab
and boost its population back up to five people.